I Know Tibet Is Not Even Part of China: Freddy Lim

The face of Taiwan’s most famous metal band Chthonic Freddy Lim is also the face of the New Power Party, the newly formed pro-democratic political party for the upcoming parliament elections.

Lim is a leader of youth for the pro-democratic movement in Taiwan who besides being one of the most followed metal stars in whole Asia have been an activist for the status of an Independent nation for Taiwan. He has been a witness to the problem of Tibet as well. He has spoken openly about Tibet’s status as a free nation in many occasions.

In an interview to Lim many years ago, he replied to the question about the connection between Tibet and Taiwan ”

Taiwan is in the front line facing China, as a part of the free, democratic world, so it’s very important in this human rights issue, Taiwan should not be quiet, especially as this is the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising against Mao and the Communists. In the world, there are lots of activities about the Free Tibet campaign. In Taiwan though, there were fewer than 200 people who would march on the street in support of the protest.

This is an issue that Taiwanese didn’t get involved in, so it was quite frustrating, but I believe that the Taiwanese, they have the same values as Tibetans, we just need to find the right way for the Taiwanese to join in. We can’t just use the old ways of protest. There are lectures for example, and it’s so hard to get young people to want to joinin. I started to pay attention to the Free Tibet campaign in 2000, and I found out that the world Free Tibet campaign, they are very open. It’s the most open campaign in the world. They work with actors, actresses, directors, musicians, bands, they have release Free Tibet compilations. The Beastie Boys have organised more than ten times Free Tibet concerts.

I think we have to learn from this campaign. Especially, in the new U2 music video, there were some clips of the Tibetan monks and Tibet flags, and then a woman dressed in national costume. If you are traditional Buddhist, you can’t make fun of us, of what we believe in, our religion, but we didn’t see any Tibetan go out against this music video. This campaign is so open that the let all kinds of people with all kinds of values but the all support Tibet. So I think that’s very important for us to have this kind of campaign in Taiwan.”

Also in a most recent interview he told the report when asked about his Taiwanese centred lyrics “When I was younger almost everyone thought of Taiwan unified with China. Textbooks were Chinese-centric and didn’t teach Taiwanese history or geography. I still know all the details from Tibet and Mongolia and they’re not even part of China!

Young people in Taiwan have learned more about their history from the Internet than through government books. When I was younger a lot of books were banned so you couldn’t’ even get information in bookshops.”